Did My Cards Predict Boudreau’s Firing? November 28, 2011

Bruce Boudreau is out, Dale Hunter is in, and Tuesday night’s game against the Blues now looks like the must-see game of the week–even ahead of Thursday night’s Pittsburgh tilt. Not that I have to pick and choose: season tickets are a wonderful thing.

I’ll leave the dedicated hockey side of the story to the dedicated hockey writers. I doubt I’ve much to add to the hard news.

But here’s an intriguing question: did my cards actually see this coming, and I missed it?

Recall from Part VI of my preseason reading that one of the cards in the Immediate Future position was The Hanged Man, and the other, the 3 of Swords. I took this as meaning that the team might tread water a bit in the early going, and that there might be quite a bit of sadness.

Here’s what I wrote two months ago:

I think what we’re going to see early on could be a sense that we’re watching a rerun of a prior season episode of deja vu all over again. And if so, it’s not going to be fun to watch. If it really does come to that, there could be no small amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Put simply, these two cards, put together, do indicate a rough start to the season.

Needless to say, I was eating quite a bit of humble pie after the Caps’ 7-0-0 start. (Okay, okay, it wasn’t humble pie, it was French silk pie, but hey, technicalities.) Well, now, 22 games in, the Capitals are indeed treading water, Coach Boudreau has gotten a metaphorical hanging that wasn’t by his foot, and there really has been no small amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

However, this is the point in the season where I can’t quite say for sure one way or the other whether or not we’re still in Immediate Future territory. On the one hand, we’re 22 games in, which doesn’t quite strike me as “immediate.” On the other, it’s not yet December, there are five dozen games to go, the All Star game is still two months away, and there’s still a lot of future left in this season; so maybe we still are in Immediate Future territory. As any good book on tarot will tell you, the cards can be maddeningly imprecise when the question is “when?” About the only exception to that is when an Ace shows up in certain positions on a Celtic Cross spread. But as far as what the cards consider “immediate future” on an 82-game regular season, well, good luck getting a precise number on that one.

Now, if this coaching change were taking place even as early as the Winter Classic, I’d still be under the impression that we wouldn’t be in Immediate Future territory. Nineteen games into the season, I would say no problem. But that 2 in the first position…oh, holy crap, I just thought of something. Literally in the middle of typing that sentence.

The Caps have played 22 games. 22. For one thing, there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana, for whatever that’s worth. And for another, in numerology, 22 is considered a master number. It does still break down to a 4, but the influence of 22 is still there, which makes it a bit more powerful.

Meaning what, exactly?

Whether intentionally or not, the Caps have brought Dale Hunter in at a very powerful moment in the season. What becomes of the remains of the season is anyone’s guess.

But here’s the part that has given me goose bumps for most of the day. If my cards really did see this coming, and I simply misread two cards I have trouble with…what then of my final prediction–Caps win it all–which was based off two cards I had so little trouble reading that I almost couldn’t accept what they were telling me? Is this coaching change an early season sign that points all the way to a championship? Could it possibly mean…? I don’t know, but the intrigue just got kicked up a few notches.

So, did my cards predict Boudreau’s firing? I’m not sure. They certainly indicated a rough start, but at what point did 7-0-0 wipe that out? Or was that 7-0-0 accounted for as part of a longer stretch than I read it as initially? I don’t claim to know the definitive answer to that, and for that matter, I’m not sure if there even is one. Maybe the fact that I can’t answer it with certainty either way, is all the answer to that question that I’m ever going to get. It’s a mysterious universe we live in.

Stranger still…

The Capitals sent out a notice to their season ticket holders announcing Coach Hunter’s hiring. I received it at 11:11. 11 is also a master number, and there it is, doubled. Weirder yet? This post is the 333rd post, all-time, on my blog.

That’s an awful lot of repeating numbers all at once. I’d like to write that off as a statistical oddity, a fluky coincidence, just a tiny little freak event. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that there may be more going on here, spiritually, than I know about right now. I may have to look into this a little further over the next few days, if time permits, although three Caps games in five nights might ultimately say it doesn’t.

For now, a hearty “Thanks for everything, and good luck” to Bruce Boudreau, and a hearty “Welcome back, and good luck” to Dale Hunter.

See you all tomorrow night at the rink. It’s going to be interesting hearing how loudly Dale Hunter gets welcomed back. So interesting, my audiologist will have to see his cardiologist…but that’s another story.